Counting birds in India: Methodologies and trends

Counting is central to ecological studies and conservation research in ornithology. This article examines the present status of counting birds for various purposes in India. Though there is general awareness about proper counting techniques, as evidenced by the variety of methods employed by field biologists, reliability estimates are not available for most studies. Counts that employ large sets of volunteers, such as the Asian Waterfowl Census have not developed rigorousness, and bird-counts in community studies have ignored to perform standardization exercises such as developing species incidence curves. Studies on single species, though important, have mostly focused on species with high conservation value, but are expanding to include other species as well. Some recommendations for future work are provided.